The letter has been vaguely popular and serves as a support for those who favor security-oriented racial profiling in this post 9-11 era. If it weren’t so popular it wouldn’t be worth writing a counter argument to, but it is popular, and unfortunately there are so many things wrong with it that it hurts to even read.
The letter is a bit long, but worth posting in full:
“I’ve been trying to say this since 9-11 but you worry me. I wish you didn’t. I wish when I walked down the streets of this country that I love, that your color and culture still blended with the beautiful human landscape we enjoy in this country. But you don’t blend in anymore. I notice you, and it worries me.I notice you because I can’t help it anymore. People from your homelands, professing to be Muslims, have been attacking and killing my fellow citizens and our friends for more than 20 years now. I don’t fully understand their grievances and hate but I know that nothing can justify the inhumanity of their attacks.
On September 11, nineteen ARAB-MUSLIMS hijacked four jetliners in my country. They cut the throats of women in front of children and brutally stabbed to death others. They took control of those planes and crashed them into buildings killing thousands of proud fathers, loving sons, wise grandparents, elegant daughters, best friends, favorite coaches, fearless public servants, and children’s mothers.
The Palestinians Celebrated. The Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. So I notice you now. I don’t want to be worried. I don’t want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying t o protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist.How do I differentiate between the true Arab/Muslim-Americans and the Arab/Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter these same good neighbors and children? The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults. It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this country to determine it for me.
I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your “Jihads”? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America ? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.
Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. No more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy. I am only interested in action. What will you do for America - our great country — at this time of crisis, at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting “Allah Bless America ” I want to see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole. The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets.
You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.
The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States proves who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing “leaders” like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat. If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your “leaders” are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance?
It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world’s Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.
We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother , my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand.” “Until then .. you worry me.”
Whether this article really was written by the afore-mentioned American Airlines captain is irrelevant. If it wasn’t written by him then it was written by someone else with this type of mindset (and there are plenty of them), and it’s the mindset that’s the focus of my commentary.
The Palestinians Celebrated. The Iraqis were overjoyed as was most of the Arab world. So I notice you now. I don’t want to be worried. I don’t want to be consumed by the same rage and hate and prejudice that has destroyed the soul of these terrorists. But I need your help. As a rational American, trying t o protect my country and family in an irrational and unsafe world, I must know how to tell the difference between you, and the Arab/Muslim terrorist.How do I differentiate between the true Arab/Muslim-Americans and the Arab/Muslims in our communities who are attending our schools, enjoying our parks, and living in OUR communities under the protection of OUR constitution, while they plot the next attack that will slaughter these same good neighbors and children? The events of September 11th changed the answer. It is not my responsibility to determine which of you embraces our great country, with ALL of its religions, with ALL of its different citizens, with all of its faults. It is time for every Arab/Muslim in this country to determine it for me.
I want to know, I demand to know, and I have a right to know whether or not you love America. Do you pledge allegiance to its flag? Do you proudly display it in front of your house, or on your car? Do you pray in your many daily prayers that Allah will bless this nation, that He will protect and prosper it? Or do you pray that Allah with destroy it in one of your “Jihads”? Are you thankful for the freedom that only this nation affords? A freedom that was paid for by the blood of hundreds of thousands of patriots who gave their lives for this country? Are you willing to preserve this freedom by paying the ultimate sacrifice? Do you love America ? If this is your commitment, then I need YOU to start letting ME know about it.
Your Muslim leaders in this nation should be flooding the media at this time with hard facts on your faith, and what hard actions you are taking as a community and as a religion to protect the United States of America Please, no more benign overtures of regret for the death of the innocent because I worry about who you regard as innocent. No more benign overtures of condemnation for the unprovoked attacks because I worry about what is unprovoked to you. I am not interested in any more sympathy. I am only interested in action. What will you do for America - our great country — at this time of crisis, at this time of war?
I want to see Arab-Muslims waving the AMERICAN flag in the streets. I want to hear you chanting “Allah Bless America ” I want to see young Arab/Muslim men enlisting in the military. I want to see a commitment of money, time, and emotion to the victims of this butchering and to this nation as a whole. The FBI has a list of over 400 people they want to talk to regarding the WTC attack. Many of these people live and socialize in Muslim communities. You know them. You know where they are. Hand them over to us, now! But I have seen little even approaching this sort of action. Instead I have seen an already closed and secretive community close even tighter. You have disappeared from the streets.
You have posted armed security guards at your facilities. You have threatened lawsuits. You have screamed for protection from reprisals.
The very few Arab/Muslim representatives that HAVE appeared in the media were defensive and equivocating. They seemed more concerned with making sure that the United States proves who was responsible before taking action. They seemed more concerned with protecting their fellow Muslims from violence directed towards them in the United States and abroad than they did with supporting our country and denouncing “leaders” like Khadafi, Hussein, Farrakhan, and Arafat. If the true teachings of Islam proclaim tolerance and peace and love for all people then I want chapter and verse from the Koran and statements from popular Muslim leaders to back it up. What good is it if the teachings in the Koran are good and pure and true when your “leaders” are teaching fanatical interpretations, terrorism, and intolerance?
It matters little how good Islam SHOULD BE if large numbers of the world’s Muslims interpret the teachings of Mohammed incorrectly and adhere to a degenerative form of the religion. A form that has been demonstrated to us over and over again. A form whose structure is built upon a foundation of violence, death, and suicide. A form whose members are recruited from the prisons around the world. A form whose members (some as young as five years old) are seen day after day, week in and week out, year after year, marching in the streets around the world, burning effigies of our presidents, burning the American flag, shooting weapons into the air. A form whose members convert from a peaceful religion, only to take up arms against the great United States of America, the country of their birth. A form whose rules are so twisted, that their traveling members refuse to show their faces at airport security checkpoints, in the name of Islam.
We will NEVER allow the attacks of September 11, or any others for that matter, to take away that which is so precious to us: Our rights under the greatest constitution in the world. I want to know where every Arab Muslim in this country stands and I think it is my right and the right of every true citizen of this country to demand it. A right paid for by the blood of thousands of my brothers and sisters who died protecting the very constitution that is protecting you and your family. I am pleading with you to let me know. I want you here as my brother , my neighbor, my friend, as a fellow American. But there can be no gray areas or ambivalence regarding your allegiance and it is up to YOU, to show ME, where YOU stand.” “Until then .. you worry me.”
And I hardly even know where to begin. I know I’m not going to begin by spewing forth my air-tight logic on why racial profiling doesn’t work. I’ve written other articles (as have many) on why racial profiling doesn’t work and that’s not open for argument. It doesn’t work, period. If you don’t believe that, search for arguments, they’re not hard to find. Instead, I think I’m going to simply dish out a long pent-up rant.
The timing of when I read this piece was ironic because I had just reading an article the day before (link to said newspaper article has expired) about how in Europe only one of the past over one hundred terrorist attacks have been by a Muslim. Not even just a Middle Easterner, a Muslim in general. So I’m sorry to break it to the paranoid public, but terrorists are not inherently Muslim. Similarly, it’s worth noting that not even all Muslims are Arab. Even police agencies, which love operating on tradition, are slowly coming to grips with this fact. You can’t spot terrorists, or Muslims, by their skin color and/or choice of headwear. That’s fact. The numbers are in, it does not work.
But a lot of people still make up a lot of emotional garbage about how they feel since 9-11, and they use those emotional feelings to justify lots of stupid things. It’s as if they think 9-11 is a magical wand that can justify any irrational fear/thought that would otherwise be unjustifiable. In such arguments there is never any logic (re-read the article, there’s none in it), it all rests on emotional appeal. The fellow morons who buy into the emotional appeal garbage go right along with a message like the above, giving it some form of a hearty “Amen!” It’s hard to believe, but that kind of emotional garbage actually appeals to a large crowd of people. “I’m emotionally hurt, so I’m now going to respond with fear and irrational decisions.” More people buy into that then makes me comfortable. Refuse to be terrorized, you idiot, the terrorists what they want you to be terrorized. You’re a wimp and a coward and you have nothing to fear except the sheer stupidity of the masses composed of people such as yourself. Grow up and get a sense of dignity and logic.
Also, here’s the thing. I’m not sure how to put it delicately, so I’ll just be blunt: I don’t care how you feel because it’s irrelevant to me and my level security. I don’t care how much Middle Easterner’s scare you, profiling against them doesn’t keep my girlfriend safer the next time she flies. And in the end, that’s what I want, and that’s what national security, on a simple, broad scale, is really about. Keep people alive — that’s the goal, and therefore that’s what all decisions should be weighed against. I don’t care about political correctness, I care about keeping people alive, and racial profiling fails to do that. And if you’re like Mister AA Pilot up there, you fail to do that as well.
But people fail to realize the cold facts, no longer how long they are lectured on them, because they turn security (as Bruce Schneier points out in his book Beyond Fear) into an emotional thing, and then they make emotional decisions based on it. Security becomes less of a “what is more likely to keep my sorry self alive another day” matter and more of a “what makes me feel safer” matter. What that lacks in logic it makes up for in popularity.
And such people fuel their already emotional selves with stuff they make up in their heads. I’m sorry to point out that most flag-burning America-cursing death-proclaiming Arab/Muslims are, as it turns out, located in the Middle East, not America. Most Muslims in America are just people with an odd religion (I know I’m not politically correct, eat fire) and of absolutely no threat. How many Catholics here in America would defend their belief to the death? Probably fewer than one percent. Same goes for the Muslims, they just aren’t, by nature, dangerous. Fanatics will be fanatics, but just because you subscribe to a religion that has advocated violence doesn’t mean you’re fanatic. Yes, Islam is a violent religion. No, not every Islamic person out there is devoted to their religion to the point of death. Ninety percent of Catholics can’t be bothered to attend Church on Sunday, and I’d bet that here in America there’s a good portion of Muslims that aren’t terribly devoted to their religion either. Most people just latch onto a religion for the “feel-good” effect — why should Muslims be different? Their religion is just more visually noticeable and ethnically stereotyped. Just because their Holy Book tells them that a suicide bombing is admirable doesn’t meant that they want to do it. They’re still human, they’re still selfish, they’re still lazy. They’re not ant-like war machines, they’re people like you who would probably rather eat chips and onion dip straight from the container while watching a Jim Carrey movie than go out and take up a religious cause that inconveniences them, especially if it inconveniences them in a way such as death.
But no, emotions get in the way and dictate to people that Muslims are, by definition, scary. It would not shock me if about the same proportion (accounting for population sizes) of “cafeteria Catholics” have committed acts of terror in the US as Muslims. Stop and think about it, how many terrorist attacks on America have there been before 9-11 by Muslims, or even by Arabs? Bet you can’t name one. If you can name one I bet it’s the first World Trade center bombing, which was actually organized by the same people as the 9-11 attack so you can’t really count them separately. But interestingly, in the 40 years preceding 9-11 there have been over 30 hijacked American Airlines flights. None by Muslims, or even Arabs.
People like this author actually scare me because they admittedly don’t make decisions based on reason, and thus you have no way of predicting them. (Which sounds somewhat like what we accuse the terrorists themselves of, doesn’t it?) I don’t know what kind of policy such a person is going to vote for, or even when they might decide to take matters into their own hands and deal with that Arab across the street who’s been making said moron in question “uneasy” for the past few years. (Fact: There are millions of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. The ones that are dangerous (assuming there are any) don’t live in your neighborhood. Get over it. Please stop calling the FBI when you see Arabs keeping track of the time.) And if these kinds of irrational people hold a political office, I don’t know what type of idiot policies they’re going to try and enact. They’re just flat out unpredictable, and I don’t like to be around people who I know will make decisions on irrational emotions. Especially when those people are adult men.
People like this author are the people that plague our society. Their inability to think logically influences political policy and thus increases the likelihood that my girlfriend will die the next time she flies. Way to go cretin, now my girlfriend is less safe, due to security policies and rational based on your idiotic line of thinking. If she dies, I’ll be sure to thank you. Via tire iron.
If these people had irrational thoughts like this on any subject not related to 9-11 they would likely get laughed at as the cretins they are. But they appeal to the general publics emotions, so this stuff continues to survive. The only reason we’ve survived this long as a society is because stupid people don’t get what they deserve. You can afford to have stupid opinions because there is no penalty for doing so. I promise that if people died from having stupid opinions people would work harder on not basing decisions on “um, because you, admittedly, irrationally scare me”.
If, when you read the above letter, you felt like slapping the author on the back for “not being afraid to say what needs to be said” then please, don’t vote again until you fix whatever it is that makes you think like a cowardly and particularly stupid three-year-old. Try conducting more than 15 minutes of research on modern day American-based terrorism before proclaiming yourself an expert. And to the author of this letter, whomever you are: please, grow up. You have little to no grip on reality, reason, or facts. You scare me.
